Portrait of Philipp Melanchthon, Church Reformer

Portrait of Philip Melanchthon at the Mauritshuis in The Hague is among the most significant of Cranach's many portraits of Luther's closest theological collaborator. Melanchthon (1497–1560) was the systematic theologian of the Lutheran Reformation — the author of the Augsburg Confession (1530), the Loci Communes (1521), and the principal organizer of the Protestant educational system across Germany. Cranach and Melanchthon were intimately acquainted in Wittenberg, and the portrait series of the scholar-theologian served the same commemorative and propagandistic functions as the Luther portrait series. The Mauritshuis acquisition of this work indicates its journey to the Dutch Golden Age collecting tradition; the Hague museum's holding of it alongside Vermeer and Rembrandt provides the most dramatically contrasting context imaginable for this northern German Reformation image. The c.1600 date suggests this is a workshop copy after an earlier Cranach original, produced for the continuing Protestant commemoration market.

Melanchthon is depicted in three-quarter view with the direct, intelligent gaze Cranach consistently brings to his reformer portraits. The face is rendered with linear precision in Cranach's characteristic manner, and the scholar's dark coat is simply treated to keep focus on the face.